STAR Children’s Pesticide Exposure Research Reviewed in Science

Site Navigation

Grantee Research Project Results

A recent article in Science called“Growing Up With Pesticides” reviews three long term epidemiological studies started in the 1990s under two of the EPA and NIEHS’ jointly funded Children’s Environmental Health Centers: the University of California Berkeley, Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas or CHAMACOS, and the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health. These research studies assess pesticide impacts on pregnant mothers’ fetuses and follow the children‘s development through adolescence. Research findings show that exposure to pesticides such as organophosphates and chlorpyrifos while still in the womb, resulted in parts of the children’s brain not being fully developed, low birth weight, and lowered birth size. This can result in lower IQs, shorter attention spans, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), learning disabilities, and could prevent neurotransmitters in a child’s brain from going to their proper destinations.

Organophosphates and chlorpyrifos exposure resulted from consumption of agricultural products, living in proximity to farm areas that used these chemicals, direct exposure to the mothers that work in the agricultural industry, and living in urban areas where these chemicals were used to fight insects like cockroaches and ants. Regulation of organophosphates and chlorpyrifos has resulted in decreased exposure but the replacement products still remain a concern to researchers.